10 May 2008 11:55 PM

The class of '68 smoke their dope as the poor go to hell

It seems to me that just one ruined life is too high a price to pay for our weak drug laws.

What valuable thing would we lose if cannabis were driven out of our society for ever?

Dope has wrecked tens of thousands of lives and will wreck millions more – those of its users and of their families – if we do not find the resolve to fight it.

A whole generation sniggers smugly about this issue and refuses to take it seriously.

It is this generation that yelped and snarled with selfish outrage when the Government at last showed some signs of doing the one thing that will actually work if only we try it – threatening to punish those who use cannabis. Fear works.

I wonder just how many civil servants, BBC and Guardian journalists, "respected academics" and politicians are concealing serious current drug habits from us.

Given the condescending tone of these people towards anti-cannabis spokesmen during the past week, I think BBC presenters especially should be asked outright on air if they use illegal drugs, or allow their children to do so, if only so that we can enjoy the awkward pauses that follow.

The snivelling claim that they are entitled to a "private life" applies only if their greasy personal habits have no influence on their public behaviour.

But they do. On two of the rare occasions when I was allowed to make the case against dope on the airwaves, I found myself subjected to a stare of pure, undisguised hatred from one BBC presenter, and was angrily harangued after my appearance on a commercial station by a journalist who had been in the studio.

This, you see, is the thing they truly care about.

They pretend to be worried about dictatorship in Burma or hunger in Africa or the oppression of women in the Muslim world. But that's just dinner-party fake concern.

The real issue for the 1968 generation has always been their right to have fun, however much it costs other people.

So they have promoted ways of behaviour, sexual rules and a drug culture that were bad enough on the college lawns of Oxford and Cambridge in 1968, and that are plain disastrous among the dead mattresses and burned-out cars on the sink estates of post-industrial Britain.

But rather than give up their delights, they are content to see the poor go to hell.

Their one line of defence is that drink and tobacco are just as bad, and they're legal.

Well, I'm more than happy to use the criminal law against these things, too. In fact, we already do, rather effectively – as the drink-driving laws and the tightening ban on public smoking show.

If we could see just half a dozen rock stars, rock brats, BBC presenters and politicians doing time for cannabis possession, then I think I can guarantee you a satisfying drop in cannabis use, and a general improvement in the mental health of the nation.

All we need to do now is dissolve the wretched Association of Chief Police Officers, those liberal friends of crime, and enforce the law of the land.___________________________________________________________________

Sixty years on, it is still Israel that faces persecution

Israel's 60th birthday provides an excuse for a lot of liberal humming and hawing by people who face no threat of being exterminated or driven mad with persecution because they have the wrong genes.

They go on about the 1967 and 1973 wars, and romantic battlefield heroes such as Moshe Dayan, to show they're open-minded, and then add some obligatory sniffling about the plight of the Arab refugees.

A fat lot they actually care about the refugees, who would have been resettled years ago if the Muslim world hadn't decided to use them as propaganda pawns and keep them in slums.

Who now talks about the millions of refugees from Indian partition in 1947? Or the millions of Germans driven from Poland and the Czech lands in 1948?

Or the many Jews driven from the Arab countries and resettled in Israel?

Nobody. Somehow they don't count.

Maybe if Israel can survive till its 200th birthday, it can achieve the same status as Australia and the USA, whose people also live on land from which refugees were driven.

But I doubt it. Israel alone gets attacked for this, and will alone be attacked for as long as it exists.

This selective hostility has one simple explanation – the same nasty prejudice that led to Israel existing in the first place.

All I ask is that the people who single out the Jewish state, while ignoring similar wrongdoing by other states and peoples, recognise themselves for what they are, and stop pretending to be crusaders for justice.___________________________________________________________________

There are no pious sharp elbows in my Bible, Mr Cameron

Now that the Blairite liberal elite have decided that our welfare state will be safe in the hands of the Unconservative Party, David Cameron is immune from criticism (except here).

Worse, Mr Cameron's strange, socialist desire to send his daughter to a (totally untypical) state school will be excused by almost everyone, especially all the silly Tory loyalists who cannot see that Mr Cameron is the new Blair in every way.

As long as the privileged can get special schooling for their children, through money, noisy piety or string-pulling, they can forget the poor, whose sons and daughters must endure one of the worst education systems in the advanced world.

Mr Cameron seems to have obtained this place through a lot of churchgoing and such like.

One day perhaps he will explain how he squares all this busy holiness with his belief in using "sharp elbows" to get rare places in good state schools.

My edition of the Bible doesn't seem too keen on elbowing the poor out of the way. ___________________________________________________________________

Once again, my reminder that the facts don't support claims of a Conservative revival have got me into trouble with Tory loyalists.

They accuse me of always attacking David Cameron and never attacking Gordon Brown.

Not true. I have been attacking Mr Brown, who refuses even to speak to me, these ten years.

But how did Mr Brown get there? Because a media frenzy of love for Mr Blair stopped many people realising the true character of his government.

And now a similar craze for Mr Cameron is stopping them thinking about what his government might really be like.

Tell me, all you loyalists, have you noticed Mr Cameron promising to reverse Mr Brown's raid on pensions? No, and you won't.

He's already spent the money on future plans to be nice to hoodies.___________________________________________________________________

So CCTV cameras don't actually work against crime? What a surprise.

Can we please now get rid of them, and replace them with that brilliant device for keeping order – constables patrolling on foot?___________________________________________________________________

I have little doubt that the police shooting of Mark Saunders in London will be found to have been lawful by an independent inquiry.

People who start gun battles with the police in Chelsea are asking for quite a lot of trouble.

But two things worry me.

If the police are let off when they kill or hurt people while quite reasonably defending themselves, then why aren't law-abiding citizens given more freedom to do the same?

And how is this sort of killing different from an actual execution – except that there is no charge, no trial, no evidence, no defence, no jury, no chance of appeal or reprieve?

Yet by arming the police (as we have) we make such unofficial, drumhead capital punishment inevitable.

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Dear Mr Peter Hichens,
Poor means not being able to afford a loaf of bread. Why do you keep calling people poor when they can afford hundreds of loaves of bread a week? How many children did you see at school who had no shoes? If you are talking about people being poor that is what you would mean. If people are that poor they should ask for more benefit.

'Since 50% of people between the ages of 25 and 29 have smoked cannabis are you seriously proposing that we should lock up half the population?'

I don't see this - no one is suggesting we lock cannabis smokers up retrospectively, are they? If so, both me and David Cameron better watch out.

We have a drug culture because it was created, contrived, call it what you like, in a very brief period of time in the sixties - it has all been a waste of bloody time - it still is - it is totally unnecessary. One joint of whatever vintage has a far more stonking effect in knocking your brains out than a glass of wine. I am sure this is why very few big rock acts, from the Beatles down, produce much worth bothering about after their twenties, whilst boozers can go on forever (see Beethoven) I am sure Peter can confirm the same with journalists. The correspondent who suggested that we should forget the current useless generation and rescue our children from these idiots (I am précising here) was right.

To Steve Brown - As I understand things, just as we all have Jekyll and Hyde characteristics, or Cain and Abel, so too do we each have a spark of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes within us; where else would the writers get their inspiration? In reality, our task whilst we are here on earth is to develop the better parts within us and it can be done. We do this by recognising and facing up to our darker side and not encouraging it.

Peter Hitchens is a helpful guide in this respect given that he often detects flaws that others miss e.g drug taking or police on the streets armed to the teeth. In relation to this, The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe is another good read for detectives.

Contributor David B writes;"Since 50% of people between the ages of 25 and 29 have smoked cannabis are you seriously proposing that we should lock up half the population?"

I think the passage you quote, sir, mentions "punishment" and not incarceration, as you seem to have assumed. One of the cruel injustices of our age is that for several decades now the severest punishment available for any crime - however hideous and inhuman - is jail.
You may, for all I know, be right about your 50% of the population. If Peter Hitchens is right about the effects of ingesting illegal drugs - and I strongly suspect that he is - there is nothing for it but to 'write off' that generation (and any they many have corrupted by their example) and try to start afresh with the next generation.

Peter Russell on this blog mentions 'Dr Watson-type characters' but do they exist in reality.
The media, especially television, has perfect police officers, teachers, surgeons, etc. and gives the general public high expectations of people who do such jobs.
Even Arthur Conan Doyle, who I have a lot of respect for, was conned into believing in fairies. Perfect people probably don't exist.

"It is this generation that yelped and snarled with selfish outrage when the Government at last showed some signs of doing the one thing that will actually work if only we try it – threatening to punish those who use cannabis. Fear works."

Since 50% of people between the ages of 25 and 29 have smoked cannabis are you seriously proposing that we should lock up half the population? The reality of course is that the police are not going to bother to enforce this new 'tough' law because they have much more important things to do.

Any law that criminalises half the population is not going to be enforced and will therefore merely bring the law in general into disrepute. And you don't have to be a self-serving left wing drug addict to see the truth of that.

James mentioned Sherlock Holmes’ drug taking, I haven’t read the books but I have a suspicion that the Dr Watson character might be the better half of the pair, although playing second fiddle to a more attractive and flamboyant Holmes character.

Trying to point us in the right direction, I guess a reason the prophet Peter Hitchens has recommended George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman stories is to help us see that some revered figures are not always as impressive as appearances might suggest. For contemporary evidence of how people are duped by appearances look at the rise of the self serving Anthony Blair. Alternatively, there’s that drug taking children’s television presenter, the one that committed suicide recently at Waterloo Station, as an example of a showy personality with a dark and sinister side.

A literary favourite useful as a moral warning against drug taking (and Newton’s law of reciprocal action expressed in story form perhaps), is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Mr Hyde wins social acclaim through the confidence drugs give him, but high life is followed by evil and destructive lows. In the end Hyde commits suicide because he cannot face reality.

In a similar vein is the poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Richard Cory

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favoured, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich, -- yes, richer than a king, --
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

The Chelsea barrister, recently gunned down by Robocops, may in the end have put a bullet through his head - we can’t know what dark thoughts were plaguing his mind. Nonetheless, more dark, sinister and worrying is British police showing off with firearms on our streets. Such strange cases as the one at Markham Street, Chelsea require the tact, diplomacy and clear headedness of an unassuming Dr Watson-type of character behind the scenes.

Contributor John Gibson writes "When people stop believing in God they have the potential to embrace a belief in the necessity of creating more just societies in the here and now."
The trouble is that, though many have tried, no atheist seems to have been any more successful at realising that potential than have the believers. So perhaps, as you seem to imply, the "violence" is just an inevitable part of visceral, unregenerate Man and is a result neither of theism nor of atheism.
Perhaps we tend to see religions and atheisms alike as causes, when they are simply concomitant circumstances of other activities. It would be equally absurd to assume, for example, that doctors always followed healthy lifestyles or that because the composer Antonio Vivaldi was a priest and had red hair the "Four Seasons" were an example of "red-headed religious music".
As for "embracing a belief in the necessity of creating more just societies", what I find slightly worrying is that after your plain-spoken start ("When people stop believing in God")- the kind of down-to-earth language a ten-year-old could understand - your sentence suddenly descends into the murky depths of abstract terminology and vague metaphor ("embracing beliefs" and "creating societies").
Maybe such societies have never been realised precisely because couched in such abstract language almost any regime not completely brutal could pass itself off as "just".
One thing I like about the ancient philosophers in general and Socrates and his pupil Plato in particular is that they seemed to think like intelligent children and wrote in beautifully lucid, down-to-earth style.
I think a lot of heartache and headache could be avoided, if their modern counterparts could learn the same habit.

Millicent Bystander,
You ask "In an environment that assumes sexual behaviour what defence has a 14yr old girl against a male predator?"
Unless she is dealing with a rapist, the short-term answer is to say "no" and mean it? The long-term answer is obviously to alter the environment for the better.
As for the female of the species being "naturally modest and lovely", I didn't actually say that, though I think it's true that we all come into this world "trailing clouds of glory". I said that women have at their disposal considerable power to influence the behaviour of their menfolk, if only they have the wit to use it.
Your reference to predatory female factory workers, demonstrates, if anything, how differently people can be induced to behave in crowds than when they are alone.
I deny that it proves that women are naturally predatory, though plainly some women can adopt such a style of life either because they have been brought up to it or - much worse - as a self-inflicted sophistication.
I thought you might agree that, as an antidote to rampant licentiousness, the natural modesty and sense of shame inherent in all children - and in girls in particular - until it is driven out of them, should be fostered and nurtured for as long as possible and in as many as possible.
Little children, fresher from Heaven perhaps than some of their elders , are often more readily aware of something that just isn't right than a gaggle of hair-splitting academics. They know when an Emperor is wearing clothes and when he is naked. I just happen to think that this primitive common sense of the very young should be fostered for as long as possible - and even imitated by such of their elders as can manage it.
Those who - with whatever good intentions - seek to neutralise it or to 'educate' the young out of it do so at their - and our - peril.

Millicent is (correctly) saying that the Church, whatever its origins, very quickly became a site for the already wealthy and powerful to further their interests in accruing further riches and immunity from the law vis-a-vis the plebs. Once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, you will note that the vast majority of Popes and leading cardinals came from Roman aristocratic families, and this was a practice that intensified after the demise of the Western Roman Empire as the Church became the dominant site of socio-political power and prestige in the early Middle Ages. This way the old Roman aristocratic and Senatorial classes continued to occupy powerful positions of wealth and prestige throughout the so-called Dark Ages.

The whole idea of claiming apostle status simply served to imbibe this position of privilege with a direct connection to a deity figure as part of a whole series of ruses designed to prevent either significant political challenges to its position, and also (more pertinently) to prevent any serious assessment of the amount of wealth the church simply retained for itself.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Popes were directly involved in militaristic modes of conquest, and several Popes (notably Alexander VI) actually led forces into battle themselves.

When people stop believing in God they have the potential to embrace a belief in the necessity of creating more just societies in the here and now. That some people choose instead to embrace the more violent aspect of the psyche is nto a reason to condemn atheism. Violence in the name of religion and in the name of atheism is the same thing: violence. Belief has nothing to do with it.

I hope that Peter Hitchens exaggerates the harmful effects of smoking cannabis. I've not seen the evidence that would support Peter Hitchens's dire warnings. The fears of psychiatrists over the effects of skunk are not evidence. The governments own advisers have been downplaying the size of the health risks of smoking it. I would have thought that cocaine was more harmful. As almost everybody seems to be snorting the stuff these days, why don't you mention that, Peter?

Mr Hitchens thank you for referring to me as Michael to celebrate that I have decided to refer to myself as such from now on.
Peter Preston, I could be much more vulgar than that if I chose and, anyway, I think I give as good as I get.
Millicent Bystander I think it suspicious and slightly bizarre to hide behind a pseudonym especially one as ridiculous as that.

For the sake of balance, grateful if you could also mention the peoples brutally driven out of the Eastern part of pre-war Poland as the Soviet Army invaded, and the post-war shift of Poland to the West via the Yalta accords, which resulted in massive resettlement of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, et al. Please also mention that these decisions were made by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, and the Czechs and Poles had no voice under the benign rule of their "liberator," the Soviet Union.

As you rightly say, all this happened as a result of German aggression. The resettlements of the Germans may have been brutal, but is seems perverse to me to mention it without a reference to the unimaginable brutalisation of the Polish nation at the hands of both occupants. This is not only about the millions murdered, but the ongoing effect of the extermination of the nation's elites (in large measure Polish Jews). The reason I'm saying this is that very few people know about history any more, and that some nations continue to be routinely vilified whilst others can get away with murder. Germany started the war. Horrible war, the results of which will remain with us for many years still. So a memorial to those resettled, without a reference to what led to the resettlement, seems to me akin to a thief suing a homeowner for breaking his ankle in a home he has broken into.

Millicent Bystander,
Just one further response, if I may, to your last contribution. You write "The Church is a rich man-made institution and is a form of social control".
I'm not sure that your proposition that the Church is "man-made" wouldn't cause a raised eyebrow or two either in Canterbury of in the Vatican, unless, of course, you are referring only to the buildings. If the Church were to renounce the idea of itself as a continuing apostolate, it would surely have little reason to continue.
Hilaire Belloc certainly seemed to flatly reject any "man-made" notion of the Church, even going so far as to point paradoxically to the undoubted corruption of some of it officials in order to support his point: "No human institution with so much corruption in it would have lasted a fortnight!".
The Church may well be, as you say, a "form of social control" but I think we can both agree that society certainly needs controlling by something, for freedom is a heady wine and left to themselves, people plainly go to the dogs. As G K Chesterton once remarked, it used to be said that, when people stop believing in God, they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse; they believe in anything.

Peter Preston - Sir you are labouring under a misapprehension , a myth. Let me select one statement from your comment:

"Wouldn't you agree that - given the enormous power for good with which women - and especially young women - have been endowed by Nature, the wisest course would be to reinforce by precept and example the natural modesty of as many young women as possible and admonish them by example from childhood that the sexes are not "equal" to each other but complementary to one another?"

Well.. yes but (what about the good men can do?) you are still perpetuating this myth - that the female of the species is naturally modest and lovely. That's just not true. Being modest and lovely are either learned behaviours or a natural quietness that has been nurtured. And men can be modest and lovely too. Have you, a chap, ever walked through a factory staffed by women? It used to be touch and go whether any bloke would survive with their trousers intact. That's not allowed now. Environment provides learned behaviours and even the quietest and most modest girl has a sex drive that kicks in and overwhelms them. In an environment that assumes sexual behaviour what defence has a 14yr old girl against a male predator? I agree with PH that we had a culture that provided protection to women. But that has gone. Rather than men trying to guess how women are (how well does any man understand women?) far better to put your energy into building a better social framework. This one doesn't work. The Conservative choice won't change it either. Mr Preston, with the greatest respect as I think we agree on many things, it is a waste of your time to try to guess how women are, what they want and when they tell you, to argue with them. Far better to listen to them and to do what you can to make things better for all of us. Women don't want a difficult life alone, it's just sometimes the better option - make a better Britain that encourages marriage without persecuting the few who need your understanding. The excuse that men are naturally ape-like is a cop-out; we are ALL animals. Please, let's start with education - teaching children to read and write not how to put on a condom? And let's stop State representatives being able to override a parents moral guidance? These changes can only be made in Westminster and our focus should be on politicians and the behaviour they encourage, in boys and girls.

In a kind of "tour de force" of vulgar abuse contributor Mike Williamson writes, apparently of Peter Hitchens, "Your religious fanaticism has fried your brain" and "Your logic is non-existent".
Naturally such non-constructive contributions scarcely merit any reply and perhaps none is expected but, in case there may perhaps be some valid point lurking amongst the emotion, I would be interested in any specific cases of Mr Hitchen's 'inconsistent' (or, of course, 'non-existent') logic.
Mr Williamson would, I think, find his contributions more persuasive - assuming, of course, that he is seeking to persuade - if, when challenging someone else's reasoning, he were to quote "chapter and verse", so to speak.
Hot air should, I suggest, be reserved for balloons.

In response to Michael Williamson, I am not in the least distressed if you wish to call me a Puritan. I am not one, as it happens, having neither the iron strength of character nor the depth of certainty to subject myself to such rules. But many of my ancestors, West-Country nonconformists, most certainly were, and I have always felt a strong affinity, in my heart, with Cromwell's Ironsides (though I'm a Church and King man by persuasion). We owe them a lot.

I call my pro-Cannabis opponents dim and revolting because that is what they are. I have tried them all ways, and there is nothing in them except self-serving blethers. My logic is simple, and far from non-existent, and can be stated thus: " The rigorous prosecution of the law against cannabis possession would be a strong safeguard for the impressionable young who are seduced by false propaganda into taking a poisonous drug which may ruin their lives."

None of the pro-dope whingers has ever so much as addressed this point, preferring to change the subject by drivelling about alcohol and tobacco (which they pretend to be censorious about, though if these things were banned, I suspect 95% of the dopies would be seriously inconvenienced, whereas I wouldn't much care).

Nor is my logic 'subjective', whatever that is supposed to mean. It relies on a knowledge of history, and on growing evidence of the dangers of this filth, some of which I produce in my latest posting and which Mr Williamson chooses ( conveniently for himself) to ignore.

If there is any 'evidence to the contrary' suggesting that cannabis is in fact a wholly safe material which should be readily available without restriction, I haven't seen anyone produce it.

Their arguments are dishonest, they refuse to engage with facts or logic, they repeatedly ignore important details of my case where it suits them to do so, they misrepresent my position to themselves and to others, they break off from discussion when the debate is going against them, then return later when they think I (and other readers) will have forgotten that they ran away that previous time.

Some other readers may have forgotten. New readers will not know that they ran away before. But I do remember, and I do know, and I think it just and right to make sure everyone else does too. Such behaviour deserves a few epithets.

They wave, again and again, the same dried-up old red herring, their insincere, invented passions against alcohol and tobacco. They ignore my rebuttal (in my view, refutation) of this.

They acknowledge no disadvantages at all in their case, and the basis of their belief is their own benefit at the expense of the pain of others.

I have no view of a 'perfect' society in this world. That would be a blasphemous fancy. In fact, one of the main reasons for my adoption of Anglicanism is that ( as a former Marxist) I view it as an antidote to political utopianism, rather than a replacement for it.

But I have a view of a society that would be a good deal better than what we have. And I am willing to acknowledge that it wouldn't be better for everyone - only for the law-abiding, the honest, the hard-working, the constant, and the gentle. The rest might have some trouble.

PS. There is certainly nothing Islamic about my position. Interestingly, Islamic societies are often quite tolerant of dope. Please read the lengthy quotation from Malcolm Muggeridge , on cannabis use in Egypt, in my 'Abolition of Liberty'.

Peter, you know perfectly well I did read it with care, as I have your other work. When it comes to prejudice the words 'pot', 'kettle' and 'black' come to mind. You may be the Rick Astley of journalism but you are certainly not without prejudice. However I have flagged the passage and advertised your book, you should thank me.

You are not without intelligence and I would have thought you would have agreed that vilifying the single parents of today's society is not constructive, changing the social framework that encouraged them is. I just prefer a secular democracy whereas you have stated you prefer a life governed by religion.

Milllicent Bystander you revolt me - get thee to a nunnery.
As to Peter Hitchens he proves himself what I have always suspected a Puritan. If he does not approve of an action or opinion then those who disagree with him are: dim, immoral, selfish, wicked and illogical why not go the whole hog and call them the anti-Christ?
Your religious fanaticism has fried your brain, you are right whatever the evidence says to the contrary.
Your logic is non-existent, it is totally subjective and, frankly, you make me want to be sick.
The Hitchens view of the perfect society seems to me to be more Islamic than Christian.

I agree with Peter Hitchens' comments about Israel, however I think it is important to remember that there is no such thing as the 'Palestinian people'. This concept was invented after the 1948 unprovoked war on Israel as is evidenced by this quote from PLO leader Zahir Muhsein:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity"

We need to stop pandering to the lie that there is a 'Palestinian people'. What makes a people? Language, culture, religion and ethnicity. The language, culture, religion and ethnicity of Arabs in Palestine in indistinguishable from that of Arabs in the surrounding countries.

We also need to stop using terms like 'occupied territories'. How can Jews be 'occupying' their own land? These terms that have been universally used by the media are merely tools of Arab propaganda. Prior to 1967 the term 'Palestinian' was synonymous with Jews not Arabs.

As the poster 'Rebel conservative' rightly points out, the so-called 'Palestinians' already have their own state in Palestine; i.e. Jordan. They have also been offered 95% of the disputed territories to make a second state and they refused. People need to realise that statehood and independence is not the goal of the so-called 'Palestinian' people. Their goal is nothing less than the extermination of all Jews. As Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said:
"If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

Millicent Bystander,
Thank you for your detailed exposition of your earlier post, which makes interesting reading.
I must confess that what you assert about PH's stance re Church and State has me baffled. I can't claim to have read everything he has written but the views you ascribe to him strike me as being alien to the general tenor of what I perceive as his philosophy.
I find myself in agreement with you about the dangers to which our system of schooling exposes our children. If you seriously ascribe to me a desire to "blame the little girls for not knowing what they have never been taught, and give a free pass to the little boys.", you have plainly misunderstood what I was saying.
Women's role in the civilising of a society is a cardinal one, for Nature has arranged things so that the female of the species is admired and desired and, if we discount the uncouth male trousered ape variety, is put as it were on a pedestal by the male. A woman can therefore wield considerable power and influence, if only she has the wit to use it, to get her admirer with a little patience to toe almost any line of behaviour which she may prescribe.
Women, naturally more intimately bound up than the male with child-bearing - and until fairly recently also with raising and educating their young - have a natural and universally observed vested interest in a settled and ordered environment, a desire which may not be so keenly felt by men who have not yet reached mental maturity.
The chaos breaks out, when women - and especially young women - are encouraged or induced to show their 'independence' by aping the excesses of their admirers instead of censoring them, as is sometimes seen, for example, at weekends in some of our towns, when not only young men are seen the worse for drink on the streets but young women also.
As you say, "there will always be cads and there will always be silly girls who believe them." Agreed but then you add "What we shouldn’t do is make being a single parent a career choice for young girls and that has little to do with naivety."
Wouldn't you agree that - given the enormous power for good with which women - and especially young women - have been endowed by Nature, the wisest course would be to reinforce by precept and example the natural modesty of as many young women as possible and admonish them by example from childhood that the sexes are not "equal" to each other but complementary to one another?
If there weren't so many silly and dangerously naive girls, there would not be nearly so many cads - or at least not so many successful sexual opportunists.
Like honesty, chastity is, I suggest, in the long run the best policy.

Millicent Bystander, Yes, there are many men and women in jail today who are illiterate but this is not always because they had education denied to them but in more than 50% of the cases because they have dyslexia which relates to ads and is apparently
hereditary so your point would take a Philadelphia lawyer to sort out. As you well know the authorities decided ,in their wisdom to dose up(mostly boys) with drugs like Ritalin the effects are only just showing through but no doubt we shall hear more.
Your "grown up "riposte. Feminism has fought for the premise that a woman's body is her own, she has the right to not have sex if she doesn't want to, she has the right to say no at any point in the proceedings, if she has not insisted on a condom and does not use protection herself she is then entitled to an abortion if she wants it irrespective of whether her partner wants the issue or not. Surely even you can see that this is not a 50-50 situation.
Education should be a right for everybody in the world and of course, if you have nothing to lose then you will more likely be lead into a life of crime but this hypothesis doesn't appear to work when it comes to our masters.There are crimes of different natures but to most people it takes the form of young people in gangs or what they wear or whatever and nothing to do with the "genteel" who, for their own benefit, fleece us like lambs.There is the
small matter of who might be at fault in
education at the moment and there is an argument that girls and boys should be educated separately by women and men respectively because boys need a different
level of discipline to girls but also need to do things "hands on" rather than in theory. At the moment the education system is run almost entirely by females and this is not helping boys.
Lastly, I think people can be too clever for their own good,arguing over the Palestinian problem by debating history and poring over every wrong done both to the Jewish people and Arabs. We have all done harm to each other and to make brownie points out of it seems futile. We have to accept the "now"
and try to resolve who needs what the most.
There are so many arguments about it on some blogs and so long are they that you tend to forget what the point is half way through.

"Millicent Tendency" says :"Also there are his (ie my) views detailed in 'The Abolition of Britain', around p.193, that say that because British society was less religious it could not justify the "cold harshness of the old rules" towards unmarried mothers and he goes on to suggest that this harsh treatment was in some way saving their souls"
I strongly urge anyone interested to turn to page 193 of my book (p.175 US Edition) to see if this interpretation is correct. In my view, and I wrote the book, it is not. Nor could it legitimately be made by anyone who had read the words with any care.

The passage involved explains that the decline of faith weakened the position of those who wished to discourage illegitmacy. the rise of secular thought meant that the material conditions of those involved were the only issue. As I put it:"When there are no souls to be saved -only bodies -women and 'kids'- there is only one object - to make their living conditions better, even if they then grow up - as they often do - in grave moral poverty".

A few paragraphs before I wrote :"Pre-sixties society could have, and did, live with the growing tolerance of illegitimate children. The cruel treatment of bastards could be, and was improved without damaging the fabric of marriage and the family. But the utter abolition of the taboo against women bearing bastards, so that the word is now shocking only if it is used in its precise sense, is a direct blow at the marriage-bond."

This comes at the end of a chapter (based, like much of the book, on unique original research) explaining how a major charity, originally devoted to improving the conditions and treatment of unmarried mothers and their children, turned into a pressure group aimed at changing their legal and moral status.

I really think that Miss Tendency should read it again, and more carefully, and with less prejudice.

Correction: my comment should have read that PH has had more sex than I've had roast dinners as.. well, think 'Woman on Top' - even the coldest dish can be hot.

Peter Preston@1:19pm - have to agree with you on teaching ancient Greek or Latin syntax ... "At all events something has to be done, as Mr Reid-Brown implies, to prevent our children's minds being further polluted by the" public servants who are supposed to work on our behalf and for our benefit?

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